Friday, April 25, 2014

When they came for the bloggers...

The Russian parliament is planning to pass a bill which effectively assimilates bloggers into the mass media. ....

If the law is passed and blogs end up having to be registered within a special state structure, it will oblige the owners of online diaries to check the accuracy of the information posted, to follow rules regarding elections and campaigns, to avoid disseminating information about the private lives of citizens, not to spread extremist material and to specify an age limit for users. Once the blog reaches 3,000 readers, the authors will be required to disclose their real names and surnames. In this respect, blogs will be no different from mainstream media outlets.